The present invention relates to fishing lures and components for use therewith and, in particular, to a colorfast, silicone based skirt dressing.
Tentacled or filamentary dressings have long been used as dressings for a variety of fishing lures. Such dressings have been formed from a variety of natural hairs (i.e. deer hair, squirrel tail, deer tail etc.), feathers, yarn, clumps of stranded polymers or metalized films, and slit elastomers, among other materials. Elastomer dressings have particularly become a dressing of choice for freshwater and saltwater lure manufacturers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,007,193 discloses a lure commonly referred to as a "spinner" or "buzz" bait which includes an elastomer skirt that is tied or fastened to a prepared lure body. The skirt is formed from a bulk dye colored elastomer sheet stock (i.e. having the same color or overlapping bands of color). The colored material is mechanically slit or diced into a plurality of filaments which are bound together at bordering trim pieces. A shortcoming of such a skirt is that many times it is preferable that a skirt having a patterned or spot type color treatment be available.
Another problem inherent to state of the art dyed skirts is that over time (i.e. within months) the dyes bleed or migrate through the substrate material with a corresponding loss of color definition. Due also to the adhesion resistant properties of silicone based elastomers, attempts to surface bond conventional colorants to the elastomer substrate have proven ineffective. Thus, lure designers have not been able to design long lived, colorfast skirted lures which mimic naturally occurring color schemes or patterns of bait or prey species or color schemes designed to appeal to the consumer. Lure coloration has thus predominantly been relegated to painted metal form or plastic form bodies and to which bulk dyed, solid color skirts are attached.
In addition to colorants, filamentary metalized accents have been combined with such skirts or alternatively other types of metalizable materials have been used in substitution of elastomer skirts. Such dressings typically comprise strands of a metalized foil alone or strands of a foil which is plated or bonded onto a suitable carrier substrate. The foils, however, do not readily bond to silicone based elastomer substrates, due to the adhesion resistance of the substrate material. Conventional polymer and gel elastomers substrates otherwise have not proven particularly durable with prolonged use in water and exposure to sun and heat.